Month: February 2018

SEAS has placed the following contemporary motion with the annual conference of the Scottish Labour Party. The motion is focussed on the critical report from the Auditor general towards the ambitious target set by the SNP fo really learning and care. The auditors highlighted the gap between what is needed by councils up and down Scotland and what the SNP are giving to councils to implement their ambitions.

SEAS motion

Conference notes the Audit Scotland report of February 2018 on the SNP Government’s policy of increasing hours in early learning and childcare. Conference shares the concerns of the auditors that the SNP Government failed to plan in detail with councils or provide sufficient funding for councils in the development and implementation of the policy. Conference notes also that the SNP did not consider the cost of alternative ways of expanding early learning and care to achieve the aims of improving outcomes for children and parents.

Conference recognises the need for investment in education in early childhood to promote challenging, enjoyable and relevant early learning through purposeful play and staggered start dates for children. In addition the need for collaboration and quality staff development among staff across services in early childhood settings and primary must be based on reciprocal communication, inclusivity, mutual trust and respect. Conference sees the importance of more collaboration in this way rather than bureaucratic Regional Improvement Collaboratives. Furthermore we should be targeting resources towards communities facing challenges of poverty and deprivation.

Conference commits the Scottish Labour Party to develop a comprehensive wraparound model of education, care and health from early childhood recognising partnership working with parents and carers. Such services should be flexible, accessible, affordable and responsive to community needs with extended day and all year round provision. Scottish Labour will ensure that all children and family services support parents and carers where appropriate in identifying children’s needs and providing them with quality, timeous and appropriate support.

The Socialist Educational Association Scotland (SEAS) aims to energise debate and discussion about Scottish education. We see the need to extend the influence of the ideas underpinning a socialised comprehensive education system. The case for socialised inclusive comprehensive education tackling inequalities is being made not just by the SEAS but now across policy communities. In our view there is now a clear “policy gap” between such ideas and the educational policies of the SNP, more and more often drawn from a Tory playbook supported by Tories in Holyrood.

Recently we met with councillors from Midlothian (Margot Russell, Jim Muirhead and John Hackett) to discuss with them their approach to a forward-looking agenda for education. Our “all things socialist education” follows a similar meeting with Springburn and Maryhill CLP.

SEAS opened the meeting with sharing key points from our policy paper and highlighted our five key priorities: –

idea of community-based collaboration exemplified by early years wrap round provision;

inclusive comprehensive schools based on children’s rights;

at senior phase collaboration leading to positive outcomes and destinations including development of quality vocational learning;

ensure more varied approaches to accountability and review end inspections of primary schools and promote self evaluation; and

eliminate overly supportive Government aid and hidden public subsidy to private schools

Within the meeting we

identified key challenges facing Labour Councillors in relation to education including the impact of cuts

talked about drawing on good practice in local education authorities with a view to shaping SEAS policy

shared views on Scottish Government proposals for education as outlined in Empowering Schools: A Consultation on the Provisions of the Education (Scotland) Bill.

In a wide-ranging engagement the following themes were touched upon:

aspects of good practice in Midlothian Education Services – continuous improvement in educational attainment; strong LA management team; engagement of parents and community e.g. Money Advice; targeted intervention with support and resources to areas of greatest need; very good early years provision;

concerns regarding SNP’s Regional Improvement Collaboratives (RIC) and Scottish Government’s agenda in disempowering local authorities and centralising control. With RICs there are particular issues for smaller authorities due to time officers are spending on RIC which could be spent on front line support; failure of Government to recognise that collaboration has always taken place across authorities to share good practice; pressure on headteachers and the associated administrative burden etc.

concerns re need for greater collaboration across Labour Councillors in Scotland (SEAS outlined proposal for a conference to share good practice). Reflections on the leading role COSLA took in the past in terms of strategic thinking and promoting the sharing of good practice through Portfolio holders and senior officers.

Scottish Labour should share information based on a skills audit of elected members and Party members. The Party’s Socialist Societies have a key role in sharing socialist perspectives on services that goes beyond the producers’ perspective yet can engage workers, consumers and users.

challenges of financing of local government: raising council tax; engaging parents and communities and explaining the challenges to them through community consultation; engagement of Party members in the budget process.

opportunities presented by shared campuses as community campuses: several examples of good practice shared. Agreed that Case Studies would be helpful. SEAS to reconsider challenges inherent with private schools, segregated special schools and faith schools and open debate and dialogue in these areas.

SEAS remains keen to engage further with CLP, council groups, party members on pushing forward with a socialist education agenda based on community collaboration.

Socialist Educational Association Scotland highlights the failures of the SNP Government to make a success of inclusive education in our schools. Over the past 10 years they have failed to plan or fund high-quality inclusive education. The result has been that some children are struggling to be included. Our schools and authorities are facing cuts where they should be supported to invest in inclusive practices.

After 10 years of SNP rule, Scotland has not built upon past successes in inclusion. The SNP have now locked us into a system that doesn’t meet criteria set out internationally or meet the needs of some children and their families. The world has moved on as Scotland stands still.

In September 2017, the United Nations expressed their concerns about the lack of progress with inclusive education in Scotland. Largely unreported by the Scottish media, they were concerned that “the education system is not equipped to respond the requirements for high-quality inclusive education” and “the fact that the education and training of teachers in inclusion competences does not reflect the requirements of inclusive education”. In addition they were concerned with the “persistenceof a dual education system that segregates children with disabilities in special schools”. For the UN it was a human rights issue and Scotland was out of line with the UN’s view on inclusive education (See UNCRPD General Comment No.4).

The UN were clear on their recommendations. The government should “adopt and implement a coherent and adequately financed strategy, with concrete timelines and measurable goals, on increasing and improving inclusive education.”

So pretty clear as far as the United Nations goes regarding the human rights of disabled children. So what do we get? The Government re-issued in a revised format the guidance for presumption of mainstreaming from 2000 and consulted on its presumption of mainstream that falls short on a commitment to inclusive education. The consultation paper lacked any acknowledgement that the UN had concerns and offered no response to the UN recommendations. The General Comment issued in 2016 by the United Nations provides a framework for inclusive education – and you guessed it – this helpful framework was ignored.

It’s as if we have learned nothing in the interim. No reference to Curriculum for Excellence nothing about children’s entitlements within their learning. The SEAS believes that every child is entitled to personal support to help them meet their needs. It’s an aspirational agenda for an inclusive society. The SNP are consulting on three ways to fail. No strategy is offered for inclusive education. At heart of the document no mention of the rights of disabled children to inclusive education and nothing to say about the success in inclusive practices across Scotland.

The SEAS rejects the presumption of failure in the three exemptions approach. We need to implement the United Nations recommendations. Scotland can build on the successes of inclusion. Successes that include the social mix of our inclusive comprehensive schools especially at primary stages, the successes in including and promoting achievement of children from ethnic minorities and the successes in the range of bases units and classes within mainstream schools that assist and promote successful inclusion.

We think Scotland can be a more inclusive society and are schools can be inclusive of all through a strategy to deliver inclusive education that will include all children to attend local schools. international advice and guidance would be helpful drawing on United nations advice and recent guidance from UNESCO on the how of inclusion and equity. It would involve the move by special schools towards being resource centres and support services for inclusive practices as happens in many European countries. It needs to include funding mechanisms that take account of successes in inclusive practices. All of this is best done through well-resourced inclusive comprehensive schools. We need to invest and foster real inclusion rather than reduce staff, cut services and offer excuses and exemptions from inclusive practices and children’s human rights.

Empowering Schools is the misnomer headlining the SNP’s consultation ahead of their next tinkering with successful structures and approaches in Scottish education. A more accurate title would be Disempowering Local Government. The document sets out proposals that will reduce the influence and scope of education authorities, pass powers and duties to headteachers without due accountability and impose centralised distant bureaucracies onto the system.

The SEAS is concerned that the SNP are drawing from failed Tory policies in England and are seeking to dismantle the range of roles whereby local authorities lead and manage in across the 32 councils. By pushing towards education “siloed out” of local authority leadership these proposals do nothing to tackle the criticism from the Christie Commission which spoke of a system:-

“As a whole, the system can be ‘top down’ and unresponsive to the needs of individuals and communities. It lacks accountability and is often characterised by a short-termism that makes it difficult to prioritise preventative approaches.

Addressing these systemic defects will require a fundamental overhaul of the relationships within and between those institutions and agencies – public, third sector and private – responsible for designing and delivering public services.”

Tackling poverty and attainment gaps cannot be successfully carried out by schools themselves or primarily by empowering headteachers. The proposals for a Headteachers Charter seek to dismantle the strengths of our education authorities and reduce democratic accountability. Headteachers are best placed to be given additional powers within a local council.

The SEAS supports more local decision-making at school level to ensure a dynamic flexible approach to the curriculum and teaching and learning. SEAS would want Headteachers to be accountable to deliver on the “principles of democracy and social justice through fair, transparent, inclusive and sustainable policies and practices in relation to: age, disability, gender and gender identity, race, ethnicity, religion and belief and sexual orientation. “ (GTCS 2012)

Schools should be collaborating more at community and classroom level. These plans do nothing to support further development of Curriculum for Excellence as a 3-18 project.

Schools, authorities need to collaborate to fulfil this approach that includes aims of –

developing a comprehensive wraparound model of education, care and health from early childhood and ensure that all children and family services support parents and carers where appropriate in identifying children’s needs and providing them with timeous and appropriate support

developing a single, broad and inclusive framework for the curriculum from early childhood to adult learning. This should include personalisation and choice, depth, breadth, relevance, challenge and enjoyment and progression and value what learners know and can do so that all learners can be proud of their achievements.

The Regional Improvement Collaboratives are an answer to a question no one has asked and conflict with aims of services across the public, private and third sector working together in line with Christie recommendations.

We note the recent evidence from schools in the Northern Alliance collaborative area who told the Education and Skills Committee that they had not heard of the Northern Alliance. They shared their “scepticism about the effectiveness of a Collaborative on the scale of the Northern Alliance. It was felt that people ‘on the ground’ were best placed to know the community. Teachers wanted support from someone who knew the area they were in”

We agree with the teachers in their evidence to the Education Committee, the six RICs are too distant from the local communities and classrooms. The SEAS is strongly opposed to the bureaucratic structural change of the Regional Improvement Collaboratives.

In terms of pupil participation the document is light on encouraging the widest possible forms of pupil participation too often pupil participation is selected from a narrow group of pupils. Our schools should be encouraging the participation of all.

On the proposals for setting up a Workforce Council and attacking the GTCS SEAS feels they lack a clear rationale and seems confused about who are educational professionals, para-professional and other education staff. Many reports on Scottish education ascribe substantial strengths to the locus and role of GTCS. The proposals fail to set out why this needs to change.

The SEAS was concerned with the consultation, questions were on occasion unclear and unhelpful. We welcome the opportunity to contribute but have no confidence that the SNP will be listening to communities, teachers and parents across Scotland. The SNP cannot continue to cut budgets to local authorities and not take responsibility for problems and challenges that our authorities and schools encounter. We need real investment in education not distant bureaucracies or more unaccountable officials.